Enthusiasts have considered the 6800 GT a very good "high-end value" for quite some time. However, with 7800 GT prices falling into the sub-$330 range, the 6800 GT's reign has drawn to an end. To fill the performance gap and compete with the ATI's X800 GTO and still unavailable X1600 XT, NVIDIA has introduced the 6800GS, which is essentially a higher-clocked 6800 with GDDR3 RAM. It is clocked so much higher in fact that its performance rivals that of the 6800 GT, even with fewer pixel pipelines and vertex shaders.

While the performance is spot-on and the card is already available from companies such as eVGA, it is not clear how many OEMs will support the card or how long it will be available before seeing replacement from a GeForce 7 series part.

The GeForce 6800GS is only available for PCI-Express and retails for $229.